The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-01-13
Dallas of To-Day.

Dallas is the commercial center o
North Texas, drawing its trade from
beyond its borders in every direction
along the Texas & Pacific, Houston &
Texas Central, Gulf Colorado &
Santa Fe, Missouri Pacific and Texas
Trunk; also from the Dallas extension
Of the Santa Fe to Paris, and Santa Fc
extension to Greenville and Indian
Territory, which have just been com.
pleted; also the Dallas & Greenville
road, whose cars began running on
the 1st of January, this year. The
completion of these roads with con-
temptation of the speedy building OF
the Gulf e. Pacific settles for all time
to come the point of: "What town in
this State shall be the great railroad
center between the Mississippi River
and the Rocky Mountains on this
parallels" No city in the south has a
more perfect system of railways. No
city can succeed rs great commercial
and manufacturing center without a
large number of railroads. That
point has been gained. Other rail-
roads will seek Dallas instead of .Dal-
las seeking the railroads. This is in
evitable, and it is necessary to impress
this fact upon the mind of men seek
ing locations in which to invest
money and establish mere, ntile houses
or manufactures. AS has been shown
in the opening article in this paper
how Dallas was brought into exist
ence and how il passed through the
different epochs of its brief existence,
arriving at its present strong and vig-
orous manhood, il is but necessary to
speak in brief OF few commercial
points to show its present status. We
are a city now of $4,000 or $4,000 i'll
habitants.
THE MERCHANTS OF DALLAS
are among the most enterprising in
the complercial world. The whole
sale dry goods houses in this city en-
ploy about $50 men and women. The
sales aggregate perhaps between
S4,ooo,ooo and 100000 per annum.
There are fifteen dry goods firms, en-
ploying as many more clerks, with
aggregated sales of over LOCO, 900 dol
lars. The eight or ten boot and shoe
establishments will aggregate in sales
perhaps 100000 dollars; millinery
stores sell about 100000 dollars
worth of goods yearly. The
clothing trade is very large, and in
proportion with other sales, there be-
ing severa the largest and hand'omest
west of st LOUIS. All these mer-
chants buy from importers and manu-
facturers. Several of tho wholesale
groceries are conducted upon extern
sive and mangniflcent plans. All of
these merchants began business upon
small capitals, not perhaps, exceeding
$4,000 cash, and to-day three of these
can make a showing ofyearly sales in
the aggregate of $6,000,000.
There are $50 retail groceries in the
city doing business approximating
81 100000. They are conducted upon
the same accommodating plan as in
older and larger cities. Their rooms
are neatly keep. as rule and tasteiully
arranged--a greater part of the num-
Der use the telephone.
The liquor, beer, cigar and fol acco
trade of The city, in the whole, will
aggregate $2,000,000; hardware aud
ayr cultural implement trade are
100000. In the miscellaneous trade
of the city, including drugs, crockery
and many small shops will swell this
class of tradeto sales to the amount
of 2$00O0,000. OF course much oil this
is calculated from information gained
from reliable sources, and much es-
iimated from the best information OBJ
tainable. This estimate does not in
clude sales of manufacturers,w which are
given under its appropriate head. The
object in giving these estimated figures
is TO give outside people knowledge
of what the inside people are doing,
and 10 convince the world of our true
pos ton as ,ity aud then take eur
stand as leading western metropolis,
growing at n wonderful and uuprcce-
denied rate.
some of the buildings in Dallas
would do credit to any city in the
Union. The magnificent four-story
brick block of Blankcnship a. Black,
the massive and beautiful Merchants
Exchange building,the Texas 4 Pacific
mammoth building for general officers,
etc, Schneider Il Davis wholesale
grocery house, I. l.. Marsalis a. Co.'s
wholesale grocery house, Kahn a.
Campbell's stores, Sanger Bros. whole
sale AID retail dry goods house, ag-
gregating hundreds of thousands of
dollars; a $4,000 courthouse, fire
proof, a county Jail costing $1,000,
Texas a Pacific depot $4,000, Dallas